Policing: Politics, Culture and Control, edited by Tim Newburn and Jill Peay (Hart : 2012)
Bringing together a range of leading social scientists and criminologists, this volume explores a number of key themes raised by the work of Robert Reiner. Arguably the leading policing scholar of his generation, Reiner's work over some 40 years has ranged broadly in this field, taking in the study of police history, culture, organisation, elites and relationships with the media. Always carefully situated within an analysis of the changing socio-political circumstances of policing and crime control, Robert Reiner's scholarship has been path-breaking in its impact.
click here for publisher's site
Mental Health and Crime (Routledge : 2010)
Does mental disorder cause crime? Does crime cause mental disorder? And if either of these could be proved to be true what consequences should stem for those who find themselves deemed mentally disordered offenders? Mental Health and Crime examines the nature of the relationship between mental disorder and crime. It concludes that the broad definition of what is an all too common human condition – mental disorder – and the widespread occurrence of an equally all too common human behaviour – that of offending – would make unlikely any definitive or easy answer to such questions.
For those who offend in the context of mental disorder, many aspects of the criminal justice process, and of the disposals that follow, are adapted to take account of a relationship between mental disorder and crime. But if the very relationship is questionable, is the way in which we deal with such offenders discriminatory? Or is it perhaps to their benefit to be thought of as less responsible for their offending than fully culpable offenders? The book thus explores not only the nature of the relationship, but also the human rights and legal issues arising. It also looks at some of the permutations in the therapeutic process that can ensue when those with mental health problems are treated in the context of their offending behaviour.
click here for publisher's site
Seminal Issues in Mental Health Law Aldershot, Ashgate International Library series, an edited collection of approximately 520 pages, (2005)
In the complex and sometimes volatile area of mental health law, this volume provides ready access to key articles from around the world. Each article has been chosen for its definitive focus on critical issues.
The work is divided into three parts. Part I: Principles looks thematically at questions concerning the role of capacity, coercion and compulsion in mental health law, together with an examination of the conflicting potential of the law to be both discriminatory and therapeutic. Part II: Process examines selected seminal empirical studies of process relating to diagnosis, compulsory admission, legal safeguards and treatment in the community. Part III: Trends adopts a broadly chronological lens critically to assess the past, examine persistent current dilemmas and speculate about an uncertain future.
click here for publisher's site
Decisions and Dilemmas: Working with Mental Health Law 2003 Hart Publishing, Oxford. 224 pages
In the field of mental health law, we entrust decisions with consequences of the utmost gravity – decisions about compulsory medical treatment and the loss of liberty – to doctors and approved social workers. Yet, how do these non-lawyers make decisions where the legitimacy of those decisions derives from law? This book examines the practical, ethical and legal terrain of duo-disciplinary decision-making: given identical cases, what dilemmas do psychiatrists and approved social workers encounter, do they reach the same or similar decisions and, most critically, how are those decisions justified? At a time of ferment in mental health law this book, through its narrative format, aids a better understanding of the dilemmas posed.
click here for publisher's site
Law without Enforcement: Integrating Mental Health and Justice (with N. Eastman) 1999 Hart Publishing, Oxford, an edited collection. 238 pages
Law relating to mental disorder and to the mentally disordered has rarely been the subject of such extensive and heated debate. This book explores and reflects upon that debate. To date the focus has been on the tension between public protection and individual civil rights, since much of its impetus has derived from ‘notorious’ homicides in the community and been directed towards calls for a ‘community treatment order’. The debate encapsulated here is more comprehensive, going to the heart of the nature of mental illness and its impacts on legal capacity, juxtaposing constructs which arise out of profoundly differing disciplines. The book concludes that the contribution of current mental health legislation is both marginal and marginalised and it seeks to set an agenda for radical law reform by recognising that asking questions may, at this stage, be more valuable than providing hasty answers. Many of the chapters deal with the recent Bournewood decision in the House of Lords.
click here for publisher's site
Criminal Justice and the Mentally Disordered 1998 Aldershot, Ashgate International Library series, an edited collection. 556 pages
click here for publisher's site
Inquiries after Homicide 1996 Duckworth, London, an edited collection. 182 pages